So I was dinking around the web looking at random stuff, when I decided to revisit the very first domain I registered back in 1995: shaka.com. Yep, I used to own that puppy!

My first internet account was at aloha.com, Hawai’i’s first publicly available internet provider, and my email address was zztype@aloha.com. I had already been zztype@eworld.com and zztype@aol.com for a long time before that, but this was my first “real” internet account (if you don’t count the UH Unix account bequeathed to me by a friend before that).

I eventually figured out how to register my very own domain name and checked around: hawaii.com… gone. aloha.com… gone. shaka.com… AVAILABLE! I plunked down my $35 at Network Solutions and officially became zztype@shaka.com!

I busied myself making websites for myself and for various big businesses in Hawai’i. I used shaka.com as my personal “blog space” before such a thing existed. I posted pictures of my new kid, posted links to interesting stuff like my guitars, and I posted links to sites I was working on. Generally, it was my goof around on the internet site.

One thing led to another, and my friend, Del Wong, owner of the aloha.com domain name, was made an offer he couldn’t refuse and he sold the name to pixi.net. Part of the deal was that he wouldn’t compete with them in the ISP market on O’ahu for a couple of years. So he set about rebuilding his ISP business on the neighbor islands. He needed another domain name to run his business under and one day sent me an email:

“Eh, Blaine, I noticed you have the shaka.com domain name. That would make a good name for an ISP. Since you not using it too much, I goin’ borrow um, OK?,” or something like that.

I gave my permission and Del fired up shaka.com ISP on the neighbor islands. Things went well, and he eventually reopened for ISP business back on O’ahu. He’s still going strong to this day.

In order for me to have a new place to host my pages, Del let me use alohapage.com, but it wasn’t mine and I thought I could do better. One day, in a flash, I came up with alohatown.com — sort of a play on ChiTown and Motor Town on the mainland… I figured Honolulu could be Aloha Town someday and I would be famous! Ah well, it sounded like a good idea at the time.

So anyway, back to the present: I was dinking around the web the other day and noticed a site registered to the .me domain TLD. It triggered a bell, so I ran off to check: aloha.me… gone. hawaii.me… gone. shaka.me… AVAILABLE!

And so here we are, gone almost full-circle. From 1995 to 2011 and I am back in the shaka business! Shaka, brah! No forget to shaka.me back, eh?